Threshold
by Yuki Scorpio
Summary: As the rain hits the window's glass, I can't help but think, even though I know I shouldn't.


Written when a friend set a challenge to write a one-shot using "As the rain hits the window's glass, I can't help but think, even though I know I shouldn't." as the first line.

Deliberately left out character appearance and other descriptions in this ficlet. Hope it's still obvious who the speak is and who he is talking about.

**Threshold**

As the rain hits the window's glass, I can't help but think, even though I know I shouldn't.

Is it raining in Tokyo right now?

I remember once you asked me if I liked rain. I told you no, I didn't, because it means I can't play tennis. You had smiled at my reply, and I didn't know why, but to me you looked melancholic then.

The exact response you gave me was "Saa...", as if understanding, yet disappointed. I didn't know what it was you were expecting or wanted, but you had always been a mystery to me. I didn't know what you saw in me, why you always appeared by my side, watching me as I watched the tennis games, watching me as I played the games, watching me as I walked off the courts and you handed me a water bottle and a towel.

Watching me. You were always watching, striking eyes hidden under long lashes and fine hair. Sometimes you made me feel like an animal in the zoo when I played and you watched behind the chain-link fence.

You weren't collecting data, you cared too little to even watch your future opponents' games before you played them. You were a presence, always there, always nearby, until it felt strange to be without you.

And then I realised, not why you kept your eyes on me, but that I couldn't have known you were watching, unless I was looking back at you.

Watching you, watching me.

We didn't talk much at all; we still don't. That one time you asked me about the rain, I was surprised. I was rained in, practice cancelled after school, along with many other students who didn't expect the sudden downpour. I had lent my umbrella to someone who needed to leave urgently, and just stood in the hall and waited for the bad weather to pass. Somehow you appeared behind me, poked me in the shoulder, and asked the question.

After standing together for a while, you suddenly told me you had an umbrella and could walk home with me, and I wondered why you stood with me and waited in the first place.

I remember walking with you, the two of us squeezed under one black umbrella, and feeling your bodyheat. The right side of me was cold and wet because the umbrella wasn't large enough, and the left side was on fire when it brushed against you again and again as we walked. We walked slowly, even though we were both half soaked, as if wanting to drag things out. We reached your house first, then you lent me the umbrella and I walked home by myself.

I had stood outside your front door, you inside, and we looked at each other. A threshold.

I had backed away and turned.

It rained again the day after that, although the weather had been promising. Practice cut short, somehow the two of us were the last ones to still be in the club room.

I can't say what made me do it, I can blame it on the rain, or the fact that I had felt empty when I backed away from the threshold, fearing it was a point of no return, but whatever it was, I ignored your words about tennis and backed you towards the window. The tennis bag you were holding landed on the floor with a dull thud, and you looked up at me.

Watching you, watching me.

For how long we stayed like that I can't recall. But I backed away again when the crack of a thunder sounded, shaking me to the core. I turned around, bitterness eating me raw, and picked up my own bag.

As I left the room, I heard you quietly say behind me, "I like the rain, it keeps you from looking anywhere else."

After that, we talked even less than before. And then I left the country.

We don't talk now, nor write letters. But week after week I get mail from you. There are never letters inside the envelopes, just photographs, sometimes of the tennis team, sometimes of random sights, and behind each of them you'd write neatly explaining what was happening in the picture. I've never sent anything back, yet you continue to send pictures over.

I take out the envelope I have received this morning, and open it. Pictures again. The club members, the beach you went to, the sunset you saw.

The club room.

I turn the picture over and you've written on the back, "Do you like the rain?"

I reach for the phone and dial your number.

"I like the rain." I say the moment you answer the call. "Is it raining in Tokyo?"

[end]


End file.
